School choice in Milwaukee - school-voucher plan

Public Interest, Fall, 1996 by Paul E. Peterson, Jay P. Greene, Chad Noyes

A hostile bureaucracy

Wisconsin's Superintendent of Public Instruction is responsible for the administration of the Milwaukee choice plan. The superintendent is elected for a four-year term in low-visibility elections held in odd-numbered years. With light voter interest, WEAC is in a strong position to dominate the outcome. Herbert Grover, a five-term Democratic state assemblyman, was first elected state school superintendent with the support of WEAC in 1981. In return, Grover "assumed the position of point man in the battle against vouchers," says Daniel McGroarty in his new book, Break These Chains: The Battle for School Choice.

Legal challenge. Calling the program "fundamentally flawed and very possibly unconstitutional," Grover invited citizens to file law suits to prevent its implementation. The NAACP, with the backing of WEAC and other public-school groups, accepted Grover's invitation. Though the program's constitutionality was upheld in the trial court, and again by the Wisconsin state supreme court, the prolonged legal wrangle cast a shadow over the plan well into its second year.

Minimal publicity. The agency Grover headed, the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), did nothing to implement the program beyond the legal minimum. Though required by law to "ensure" that Milwaukee parents were adequately informed about the availability of school choice, Grover chose to wait until May 29 to issue a press release telling schools that, in order to participate, they had to apply within two weeks. Given the time constraints, only seven schools expressed interest. In mid June, DPI gave parents two weeks to apply. Only 577 applied; space was available for 341.

Excessive regulation. In what McGroarty calls the "red-tape war," Grover also threatened the choice schools with a host of regulatory burdens, which they managed to avoid only by securing a court order invalidating them.

Defining secular. Grover then moved to keep virtually all high-school students out of the choice program. Messmer High, a private high school serving a largely African-American, inner-city population, submitted an application. The school had once been a Catholic parochial school, but, in 1985, the arch-diocese decided it could no longer afford to keep the school in operation. Under the leadership of Brother Bob Smith, a Franciscan, it re-created itself as a community school. It purchased the building from the archdiocese, raised funds from alumna, and appealed to local foundations and the business community. Only a minority of students were Catholic. Given its independence from the archdiocese, school officials felt their educational program was not so "pervasively religious" to require exclusion from the choice plan.

Yet the school did not altogether deny its Catholic heritage. Students were still expected to take classes in religion, though these were said to be educational, rather than proselytizing, in nature. Smith wore a clerical collar, and a sharp observer could occasionally spy a cross or religious portrait when walking the corridors. When the Milwaukee newspapers cried foul, Grover hastened to investigate. McGroarty reports a portion of the public inquiry at which Smith faced inquisitors not unlike those John Kennedy encountered during his presidential campaign: